tweek vs craig has 3 plots; the A plot of the tweek and craig fight, the B plot of mr. adler and his dead fiancee, and the C plot of kenny and the home-ec class. these plots barely interact with eachother except in a very contrived way at the end, and they have no obvious thematic parallels either. this troubles me because not only would it be easy to expand the A plot into its own episode, but the whole setting of a shop class has so much good potential in its own right but the episode we got uses almost none of it.
Here is the article for refference: https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Tweek_vs._Craig
now imagine taking all the tweek and craig stuff and expanding that into its own episode which i'll refer to as "the fight" to avoid confusion, then take all the kenny and mr. adler stuff and combine it with a new shop class plot and turn that into the "shop class" episode. here's my idea of what those might look like:
the fight:
this one is fairly straight forward;
have all the scenes in the shop class take place on the playground instead.
make it harder to convince tweek and craig to fight eachother both initially and throughout the episode
give tweek and craig more distinct hangups to overcome; maybe tweek is afraid of fighting and doesn't want to get in trouble, whereas craig procrastinates and would rather watch cartoons than train. now the kyle/stan/tweek side, and the cartman/kenny/craig side feel more like a distinct A plot and B plot.
finally, add in a very slight C plot with the dads.
essentially all the new scenes would go between the first fight, where they realize they need to be trained, and the scenes of them training. i'm imagining a long sequence of cartman trying to get craig to leave the couch, and craig just giving him the finger each time. then cartman makes kenny climb onto the roof and pull off the satellite dish, but this doesn't work and kenny falls to his death in the process. an equally long sequence with tweek would be intercut with this one. i'm imagining tweek starts off sparing with stan as kyle provokes him with insults on the side, and when that doesn't work they go to jimbo and ned, and there they try to overcome his anxiety before he's able to beat up ned, maybe they try spiking his coffee with jimbo's booze (maybe moonshine) and that backfires by making him sick. eventually stan and kyle realize they can threaten tweek with something that makes him even more anxious, and this is what helps him overcome his anxiety.
as this is happening there can be a scene with tweek's and craig's dads on the phone faming worry about this fight, but it turns out that they each want to know who would win as badly as the boys do, and they work the conversation around to betting on who would win. after this, craig's dad can be the one that 'punishes' craig for wanting to fight by revoking his tv privlges, then slipping him some money for sumo training. now we get the sumo scene and the ned getting kicked in the balls scene.
the main fight might stay outside or crash through a bus or classroom window instead of the shop class, and it can be broken up by mr. mackey, ms. crabtree, or perhaps by the rarely seen recess attendant lady. then add a scene where principle victoria tell the dads that their sons had to be taken to the emergency room, but all they care about is finding out who won. after that is the hospital scene and the episode ends.
shop class:
this episode would need slightly more restructuring;
Rather than simply expanding the plots that are already there, i think this episode really ought to have a whole new plot to be the A plot, one that would ideally tie together the themes of love and loss, and gender. well there just happens to be an interesting throw away line in "tweek vs craig" that can give us some ideas: wendy says "i requested to be in shop class, but they sent me here". so here's what i'm thinking; not a wendy plot, but rather a stan plot where he becomes overly worried about wendy's safety and gets in her way as she tries to join shop class.
some changes would be needed in the mr. adler plot too;
his hangup about his fiancee should be that he couldn't protect her rather than not getting to say goodbye.
i don't think anyone would take issue with cutting down on the flashback scenes; there are 4 of them plus his hallucination at the end looking into kenny's hood. at least 1 of these should be cut completely.
have mr. adler's 3rd act take place in class with everyone there, but the class won't really notice him. - side note: tablesaws don't normally come equipped with conveyor belts, but whatever.
rather than his hallucination with kenny at the end, he'll just see it in the picture he carries around.
kenny's plot would change for the third act where he'll remain in home-ec instead of transferring to shop. there he can die from a culinary accident at the very end.
other gags;
kyle and cartman should each have recuring gags in shop class. maybe kyle keeps trying to make stuff but randomly keeps making dreidels by mistake. and maybe cartman keeps making sadistic inventions like a birdhouse with a mousetrap in it, or a ring box that squirts lemon juice into your eye when you open it. or maybe the joke should be that no one actually makes anything in shop class, and instead they just play around with the machines, filing down wood until it's nothing but sawdust.
chef should also get some scenes like defending kenny's choice to be in home-ec (seeing as chef literally cooks for a living), this is where he can talk about shop class horror stories that scare the crap out of stan. he can also come into home-ec where he would flirt with pearl and break out into a song.
here's how i see the new plot and the new 3rd act playing out;
day 1 (act 1)
in shop class stan is excited to be there and says he wants to make something to give to wendy.
in the lunch line stan tells wendy about how cool shop class is, and wendy gets the idea to transfer. then between cartman's sexist comments, and chef warning them about the horrific mutilations that can happen, stan becomes obsessively worried. at the lunch table he watches wendy from a distance, and that causes him to throw up.
at night stan has nightmares about wendy experiencing the horrific mutilations chef talked about.
day 2 (act 2)
stan tells kyle and cartman that he's had to stop eating because his nervousness keeps making him throw up.
stan fames helping wendy while trying to convince her that she would actually hate it in shop class by saying it's stinky and that the teacher is really mean. when that doesn't work, he says he'll talk to mr. adler for her.
he then tries to sabotage wendy by telling mr. adler she likes to screw around in class, this gets his attention but he ultimately just hands stan a transfer request form and says she only needs to fill that out and hand it in.
later stan tells wendy what he learned but lies and says there weren't any more transfer forms and all the printers were broken so there's no chance of her getting a form. but wendy says that's ok because she got a transfer form from pearl, and she's already turned it in, and she starts shop class tomorrow.
day 3 (act 3)
in home-ec, chef interrupts pearl's lesson and seduces her with a song. pearl tells the class about the value of being opportunistic, then orders them to do some cooking while her and chef go to another room.
wendy is now in shop class while stan who is sleep deprived, nauseous, and hungry, watches her nervously. mr. adler writes his suice note and gets on the tablesaw conveyor belt, no one in class notices. wendy comes close to danger several times like having her hair inch very close to spinning machinery, stan's reaction would be intercut with this with him fainting at the end. this causes mr. adler to cut short his suicide attempt and run over to help. kyle explains that stan had stopped eating, and they rush stan over to the the home-ec class.
stan is revived with some food, and he explains himself to wendy and they come to an understanding and between them they relay the moral of the episode; don't stand in the way of people you care about, and don't let concern for others distract from your own well-being.
upon overhearing this, mr. adler has his hallucination where his fiancee relays a similar message. pearl and chef come back from having sex and mr. adler asks pearl out on another date and she says yes. chef backs away quietly.
kenny slips and knocks over a pot of boiling oil which scolds him to death. and after a "omg they killed kenny, you bastards!", the boys acknowlage that home-ec can actually be really dangerous too.
the end.
